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Ryn chewed on her lip. How could she tell Heva what the soldiers were about to do? How could she admit such a thing aloud in front of all these men and women who might have families back in Per-Siana?

Heva read the look on Ryn’s face. She slid her jaw to the side and nodded, her stretched tunic sliding off her shoulder. “So that’s how it is.” She put her hands on her hips and tapped a nail against a new, fraying leather belt there. “I wondered why the soldiers were armed.”

Ryn stood an inch taller and looked each person in the eyes the way the soldiers at her back had failed to. “We’re going to rescue a Weylin nobleman. But even though he’s a Weylin…” She swallowed, her hand wrapping around the gold flute at her chest. “I’d like to dedicate this fight to El Tsebaoth. God of the Adriels.” It felt strange coming out. It felt even more strange hearing herself say it when she felt this way.

A few men exchanged revulsed glances, and Yusuf snorted a laugh. “El Tsebaoth is a mythical deity from old stories about Adriel traitors,” he said. “And you’re a bit small to be speaking up on behalf of all of us like that. What if I don’t want to dedicate my fight to your god?”

Ryn’s gaze settled on a wispy limb of shadow creeping along his head, hovering just above his white-streaked hair. “What’s your name?” she asked him, even though she already knew it from the Fall Order.

The man tsked. “I hardly think that matters now.” He folded his hairy, muscular arms. “My name is Yusuf. Nice for us all to get to know each other right before we’re murdered.” Burn division members clutched their arms to themselves around the circle. “None of us are fighters—we don’t stand a chance against B’rei Mira savage warriors. Don’t bother giving us hope.” A few inmates around him nodded.

“Yusuf,” Ryn said. “You have a shadow wrapped around your head. How can you possibly think clearly with that darkness muddying everything you see and hear and think?”

Every single prisoner’s attention snapped toward Yusuf—his cheeks turned bright red. “What?!” he growled, charging a step toward her until the sharp ring of Heva’s blade being drawn brought him to a halt. The rusted tip was already stationed at his throat before his next breath.

“Careful,” Heva warned. “That’s your commander you’re talking to.”

“Commander.” Bastone appeared at Ryn’s side, pushing Heva’s blade down with his bare hand and nudging Yusuf back with the hilt of his polished sword. The way the entire burn division glared at Bastone, sizing him up in his blue cape and fancy armour, made Ryn wonder if he’d die today before any criminals. “You’re taking too long,” he said, seeming oblivious to the stares. He took Ryn’s shoulder and aimed her toward the sand hills. “Get moving. Let’s get this over with.”

“Easy for him to say,” Yusuf muttered as he cracked his knuckles. His wild, hate-filled eyes followed Bastone all the way back to the pale stone pad.

The sandy dunes ahead were sleeping giants in Ryn’s vision. She swallowed as she dragged one foot in front of the other. Men shuffled into a line at her back with grunts and clapping armour as they journeyed into the sepia waves and ascended a rocky mound, crawling the last stretch to reach the top. Ryn peeked over, beholding a magnificent sun-dried white stone house with terraced levels, arched doorways, and seven tall columns out front. It rested in a small haven of rare greenery across a flat plain of stone, not far from a collection of houses left in heaps of black ash: the village. Ryn’s breaths grew shallow as she took it all in, and she closed her eyes.

She hadn’t spoken to El since the Fall Order. She’d rested quietly in his presence, but she hadn’t spoken to him. “El,” she whispered anyway. “Is this really how it ends? Did you forget about me again?”

She thought her prayer was quiet until Yusuf growled over the group, “What’s she doing? Who’s she talking to?”

Ryn’s eyes peeled open. They stung with rough dust and dryness.

“Leave her alone!” Heva snapped in a loud whisper. “And quiet down unless you want the enemy to notice us!” She kicked sand at Yusuf, and he looked like he might slap her.

Ryn tried again, squeezing her eyes shut tighter this time as armour and weapons clattered, as grunts filled the mound, as prisoners kicked sand back and forth, drowning out anything El might have said in return. Her heart took on an elevated rhythm as she cried out again, her voice cracking on his name. “El. I can’t see a way out of this.”

“It’s not about what your unbelieving eyes can see. Trust, even when you cannot see.”

The sun was nearly blinding over the scattered sand as Ryn blinked at the destroyed village. Up from the mounds of ashes rose twisted shadows, some crawling over the roofs of the houses they’d conquered. Her gaze sailed over to the noble’s palace next. Prisoners began shrieking behind her, clutching their swords as B’rei Mira warriors spilled out the front door and rushed through the pillars, their impressive red and brass armour flooding the rock plain, their drawn weapons large and menacing in their hands.

“We’ve been spotted!” Yusuf shouted.

A flit of fear moved through Ryn’s stomach. B’rei Mira warriors pointed across the plain at her division peeking over the sand. Her throat flexed to scream, her instincts jerking her to run, but she felt the heavy presence of Per-Siana soldiers eyeing her back with arrows mounted on their bowstrings.

A soft buzzing sound brushed along her ears, finding its way in through the noise and chaos clawing its way to the forefront of her mind. Her hand flew to her flute.

It was no harp. It was no Adriel hymn. But it was music. Like a single drum presented to a mighty king when there was nothing else. Just one flat note of worship she could dedicate to the God Original. “Praise be to El Tsebaoth,” she whispered beneath the rumbling of B’rei Mira raising magnificent weapons, loading their bows. She blew into the flute.

A sharp, high note tore over the hill, rushing across the plain like a hand moving through the air and striking the white palace with a bout of wind. Burn Division Twelve was too agonized to hear it, scrambling backward, fumbling their weapons. Ryn’s hand shook as she lowered the flute, as she stared at where the sound had collided with the palace. The B’rei Mira soldiers were still coming, and her throat grew too thick to swallow.

Still coming.

Still coming!

“El,” she begged in a whisper.

A glimmer flickered across the smooth palace walls, hardly noticeable. Then, a great white light rose from the roof. It swept outward like a giant dove spreading its wings, and the music magnified into a choir screaming from the heavens, like a lion roaring over the plains, pulling Ryn’s flesh into goosebumps. Her gaze fired to the shadows in the nearby village scrambling into hiding places, tearing off the B’rei Mira warriors and diving into the sand.

Ryn leapt to her feet atop the dune, the flute falling to her chest, her eyes wide as the shadows cleared out of the way.

“Rebuke the fear! Go forward!” she shouted, pointing toward the B’rei Mira warriors with her sword, her heart pounding against her ribs.